A few months after taking the course, a student named Warren found himself on the subway, trying to get to the airport for a flight, with all his luggage. And I’m not talking about a cute carry-on. I’m talking three full-size juggernauts, one carry-on, and a duffel bag. It was a feat of superhuman strength that he was able to get these bags through any of the subway turnstiles, but he had made it all the way to the airport tram when he suddenly found himself not only with an unreasonable amount of luggage, but also a MetroCard that wouldn’t scan. As he stood at the turnstile, fruitlessly sliding his card again and again with a line of impatient commuters twenty people deep lining up behind him, he had the sinking realization that his card was out of money and he was running out of time before his flight took off. The only way to refill the card was to get to the MetroCard machines at the other end of the station, which would require dragging his suitcases while cutting across a line of ten turnstiles, each with its own line of people trying to swipe through. In short, this was a travel nightmare.
Though Warren’s self-admitted old habitual reaction would have been to curse up a storm, kick the machine, or scream in frustration, this time he took a breath and actually laughed at the hilarity of it all. He then stepped to the side and moved his luggage as best he could to let others pass while he tried to calmly figure out the best strategy to cross the crowded station. It was a simple, almost involuntary act of surrender, but it made a massive difference in the way the rest of the day played out.
Before Warren even had time to think of a way to traverse the station, a man behind him saw the pickle he was in and kindly asked, “Hey—can I swipe you through?” And with a quick motion, he ran his card through the reader to open the gate to allow Warren and his luggage to pass.
Warren recalled later how amazed he had been not only by his own very different and very calm response to a situation that, before he was a regular meditator, would have instantly sapped a day’s worth of adaptation energy and potentially led to a missed flight and thousands of dollars in tickets, hotels, and hassles; he was also struck by the kind response from the stranger who gladly shared a swipe of his card to help him out of a tricky spot. “I don’t think he would have done that if I had been yelling or acting angry,” he said. “Because I was calm, he felt willing to help.”
The gap you have between stimulus and reaction—that split second that less stress affords you to choose how you’ll respond to a given situation—can affect the direction of your entire day as well as the days of the people around you. It can even affect your reputation and effectiveness as a leader. Your ability to pause, consider, and intentionally choose your response, rather than being launched involuntarily into fight-or-flight mode, is a direct reflection of your own resilience and your ability to lead. With every high-demand situation you’re faced with, you’ll now have a choice. Are you going to choose victimhood or mastery?
Resilience: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. The more resilient you are, the more freedom you have to choose how you want to respond to the hand you’re dealt.
Does the martyr role come easily for you? I don’t mean to blame or shame anyone with that question. If so, here’s some good news: You can only be a martyr if you’re dealing with limited resources. And now that you’re going to have a twice-daily practice of tapping into the very source of energy, you’ll no longer have limited resources. When we feel like a martyr or get stressed, we’re not choosing to launch into fight or flight; it’s an involuntary body reaction that we inherited from many millennia spent fighting tigers. Now that most of our demands are things other than predatory attacks and we’re cultivating the daily habit of stressing less and tapping the source of creativity, we’re earning the freedom to choose how we respond to demands.
I’m not suggesting you’ll never get stressed—sometimes that’s the most appropriate reaction, and could keep you alive. Remember, it’s not bad for you to get stressed, but it is terrible for you to stay stressed. What’s going to change after a few months of regular practice is you’ll start to have the power to choose how you want to respond to demands—is fight or flight actually relevant in a scenario or would you rather step into the new now and interact with your circumstances in a different manner. This is where the daily discipline comes into play as you commit to managing your stress instead of letting it manage you.
When you move through the 3 M’s twice a day, you’re training yourself to access your right brain’s intuition and present moment awareness as the default. As you strengthen this side of your brain to bring it more in line with the development of your left brain, you’ll likely find yourself responding to high-demand situations in a far calmer and more deliberate way. The reason is quite simple: When you have the ability to be truly present in each moment during situations that are particularly high demand, then you can more easily see the most relevant action to take now . . . and now . . . and now. Your mind is not already racing eight steps ahead to one of five different potential outcomes, nor is it consumed by what it should have done differently leading up to this moment of panic; you simply recognize the situation for what it is, surrender your illusion of control, and look for the next best step to take to resolve it. There is a time and a place for strategic thinking, of course, but only after the immediate circumstances have been evaluated and your body’s fight-or-flight mechanism either engaged or shut down. This is the way we avoid a dozen tiny victimhoods each day, where we blame other people and blame circumstances rather than choosing to take responsibility and strengthen our resiliency.
Consider this scenario: You’re driving to work and someone tries to cut you off, which makes your stress hormones start pumping. You have a couple of options:
How much did that one (seemingly small) moment cost you, either in time, repairs, court fees, or sheer embarrassment? Was reacting with a stress-based response by flipping off that person really worth it in the long run? And even if you don’t end up with a dented bumper or points on your license, did giving that person the bird really solve anything? In retrospect, would you have been better served by keeping both hands on the wheel, your eyes on the road, and your mind attuned to the speed traps ahead, or, better yet, simply enjoying the interesting podcast playing on your car stereo?
Here’s the thing. We all know how we should act: eat more vegetables, exercise every day, go to bed before midnight, and call your mom more often. It’s not that hard . . . yet most of us aren’t doing it. Why? Because we don’t act in accordance with what we know; we act in accordance with the baseline level of stress in our nervous systems.
I’m not telling you anything new, nor do I have any interest in telling you how to act. I am simply encouraging you to develop a daily discipline to help you act more in accordance with what you already know to be true. That’s what meditation does: It rids you of the stress that clouds your mind and taxes your body. It allows you easier access to the ideal self that already exists within you. Remember, meditation is like a hardware upgrade for your brain so that you can run whatever software you already have in place—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism can all run more effectively on an optimized brain machine. No wonder meditation is practiced by so many of the top achievers across so many different industries and faiths.
Think for a minute about the worst boss with whom you’ve ever worked. Now think about the best. Chances are, no matter what your field, the differences came down to the level of mastery that person had over himself or herself. A leader who is chronically stressed, unpredictable, disorganized, unmotivated, uninspired and uninspiring, flies off the handle, blames other people, or just seems like a loose cannon is someone who probably lets circumstances dictate their performance and is not actually a leader at all, no matter what their job title. On the other hand, a leader who is calm, self-possessed, maintains composure under pressure, thinks clearly even when demands are pressing, has keen instincts, and seems to have a healthy relationship with stress is someone whom you trust to have your back and to act with the best interest of the team in mind.
Which kind of person do other people want to follow, hire, partner with, collaborate with, elect, or marry? More important, which kind of person do you want to be?
In the documentary Jim & Andy, about Jim Carrey’s immersive work to play comedian Andy Kaufman in the film Man on the Moon, Carrey talked about his early days as a stand-up comedian. He initially tried to do a routine that involved a lot of give-and-take with the audience, and he found himself bombing night after night. He would start the set with banter, asking people about themselves or about their day, and he needed them to be engaged for his act to move forward, which made the audience feel like part of the weight of the show was on their shoulders. Finally, one night, Jim asked the same questions but didn’t rely on the audience to fill the empty space; instead of waiting for a response, he answered his own question with his soon-to-be catchphrase: “Aaaaallllllriighty then!” The audience broke into hysterics. He realized in that moment that his role as the entertainer was not to put other people on the spot by making them feel they had to perform themselves, but to make them feel absolved of responsibility. His job was to let the audience know he was in charge. As soon as he took that responsibility onto himself, the audience was able to relax and enjoy the show. No matter how you feel about Jim Carrey’s comedy, the lesson is an important one: Leaders become far more effective and win over the rest of the team when they radiate a sense of self-mastery in any scenario, which allows everyone around them to feel more at ease.
While I think we can all agree that a control freak or someone who speaks only in monologues without getting input from others is probably not a good leader, the underlying idea here is sound. When you assume your role with confidence and self-mastery, handling changes in expectations in stride, people will naturally gravitate toward you because that confidence you exude in turn gives them the comfort to relax into their own roles around you. In Nature, the alpha dog of a pack asserts leadership by his or her presence more so than any show of force, so good dog trainers advise humans trying to establish a healthy relationship with their dog to use the same strategy. There is an automatic gravitation toward someone whose energy is calm and confident, especially in the midst of uncertain or chaotic situations. Whatever your role is—CEO, parent, teacher, manager, supervisor—when you enter your sphere of influence with a mind-set of mastery rather than victimhood, you’re putting out a vibe to everyone around you as to what kind of a person you are and what kind of a leader you can be.
When you use the Z Technique, twice a day for fifteen minutes at a time, you’re honing your body’s ability to adapt its automatic stress response to an appropriate level for the actual circumstances you’re facing. By making that internal source of bliss and fulfillment more easily accessible, your practice begins to reprogram your brain to be more disciplined and intentional with how you handle every situation throughout your day. Remember, surrender is not about giving up, but about trusting that a higher power is at work and that you can rely on your intuition to help you navigate rather than manipulate your environment. If you find yourself struggling, take a moment to reframe your perspective with that question we discussed earlier. Instead of “Why is this happening to me?” ask yourself “Why is this happening for me?” By taking just a moment to flip the script, you’re taking the power away from your reflexive responses and putting it back into your own resilience. This is how you come to recognize that you’re a master, not a martyr. And when you become a master of yourself, you become empowered to perform at your highest level.
Think back to the story that opened this chapter. When my friend Warren retained mastery of his response to the situation in the subway, someone else responded positively as well. That one interaction changed the entire trajectory of his day. He felt calmer and more surrendered, and was even able to make his upcoming flight. (And if you’ve traveled at all lately, you know that’s no small feat!) Put yourself in his shoes for a minute: Rather than waking up late, rushing to the airport, and beginning your trip as a ball of stress, you wake up a bit early, move through the 3 M’s, and flood your brain and body with dopamine and serotonin, which allows you to take that fulfillment with you on the road. Then, as the day unfolds, you respond to each situation accordingly. The gate agent, the flight attendant, your Lyft driver—they all have a positive interaction with you in the midst of a thousand neutral or negative ones. In making your day better, you’ve also made theirs better, which in turn affects the people with whom they interact.
Now think about how that positive impact compounds when you have these kinds of positive interactions day after day with the same people. When your children get the best version of you—the calm, patient you who listens and responds with intentionality rather than losing patience—they carry those feelings of security and affirmation with them to school, where they bring their best selves to the classroom and affect their teachers, who bring those good feelings home to their own family. When your partner gets the best version of you—the you who communicates openly, who loves passionately, and who projects a sense of fulfillment—they take those feelings of respect and love with them into their own workplace or environment every day and reflect them back to you at home. When your coworkers or employees or boss all get the best version of you in the workplace—the you who is innovative and creative and undaunted by challenges—they take those feelings of enthusiasm and energy about the project back to their own office or workspace, and together you motivate your team to accomplish more, which excites and inspires your customers and clients.
You stand at the center of your own sphere of influence; it’s up to you what kind of energy you want to radiate outward. Yes, you get to personally enjoy the bliss and fulfillment of your own self-mastery, but you may also come to find there’s a giver’s high you experience as the bliss passes from person to person to person down the line. I sometimes hear from students that meditation feels selfish because they are taking a break from the day to focus entirely on themselves. My job is to help them see that this ripple effect of maintaining strength and calm in the midst of intense life circumstances can change the day of someone three, five, ten people removed from you, as everyone else is touched by your one deliberate decision to respond rather than simply to react. Their own day is made a little better by your daily commitment to yourself. Your work on healing from the effects of stress is the least selfish thing you can do, because your healing impacts every single person with whom you come into contact. As you heal yourself, you help to heal the collective.
Now, there are a few rare souls with whom I have come into contact during my teaching career who insist they truly do not carry stress in their bodies and do not need to heal from any long-term effects. I am not going to question their self-perception, since they obviously know themselves better than I do, but I still encourage those individuals to consider adopting a practice because of the benefits it brings to the collective. By putting in only thirty minutes a day (total), they can improve the impact they have on the people around them, which in turn affects the way those people see the world. Even if you don’t think you need to stress less, you can meditate for the greater good. That is beautiful, too. Think of it as your contribution toward laundering the collective consciousness.
In fact, if it helps, think of your twice-daily practice of the Z Technique as a daily act of altruism. Sure, you get a ridiculously long list of benefits from it, but so does everyone around you and the rest of the world. It’s hard not to see the silver lining in that.
Recently, there has been a growing conversation in many self-help circles that the whole concept of “self-help” is going away, being replaced instead by the idea of helping the collective. I can’t think of a more beautiful direction for us to be trending as a community, nor of a more perfect explanation for why meditation has been making such inroads in mainstream America.
John Donne wrote back in 1624 that “No man is an island”; how much more true today, when technology connects us in ways once only imagined as science fiction. Of course, many cultural commentators have pointed out that despite our interconnectedness, quite a few of us also feel more alone than ever because much of our time is spent staring at screens or living in virtual worlds. What a paradox: We are alone together and we are together in our loneliness. But no matter how connected or disconnected you feel from the rest of the world, we are still a “we.” According to the Vedas, there is only one thing and we are all it. Our society and our world is still built on interactions, whether it’s the person who makes your coffee in the morning, answers your phone call or your e-mail, or talks with you across a table or through a screen. Life is made up of relationships. Some are macro-relationships, which we have with our loved ones, our coworkers, our clients, or our students; others are micro-relationships, which last only a moment or two but can happen hundreds of times each day. The “you” you bring to each of these interactions has the tremendous potential to color everything around you. A better you equals a better us. When you help yourself become stronger, calmer, healthier, and more intentional, you’re literally helping the collective become better. When you choose to mind the gap between reflex and action, you’re ending the destructive cycle of stress, and not just for that moment but for the unquantifiable ripple effect that will follow. And that ripple effect may not be contained simply to this lifetime or this generation, either. Geneticists are starting to understand that stress and trauma can be passed down intergenerationally through epigenetic changes to the DNA. So as you heal yourself, you’re not only helping to heal those around you but potentially ending cycles of trauma that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Talk about the opposite of a waste of time!
Self-help is social help. You are not improving in a vacuum. Your decreased stress, improved performance, enhanced intuition and innovation, and heightened sense of mastery and fulfillment are necessarily going to have spillover effects into every area of your life and the relationships that exist there. Think of it as collateral benefits of your own quest for self-improvement; or, if you prefer, think of your own up-leveling as a pretty rad side effect of your efforts to save the world. That’s right—you’re helping to save the world, fifteen minutes at a time.
Ziva Case Study 9
From Fight or Flight to Stay and Play
Being born into conflict doesn’t often lead to the development of inner peace. I was born during the Northern Ireland Conflict, or “the Troubles,” as those of us who lived them knew them. I’m from County Down, Northern Ireland, and was born at the end of the year in which Bloody Sunday began, 1972. That decade was followed by the British and Northern Irish Recession and continued civil unrest of the 1980s; plus, I was bullied badly as a boy, so my youth was spent in literal fight or flight. It’s hard to un-train your body and mind from that kind of thinking when it’s all you’ve known for most of your formative years. I spent much of my teens and twenties either in fights or rebelling against authority figures.
Eventually, I ended up falling in love with a New Yorker and moved to Manhattan in the fall of 2008, in the midst of another recession, but now with a new wife and new family. I really loved acting; however, the economy being what it was, the opportunities to practice my art were few and far between. I had trained as a third-generation plasterer in Northern Ireland, so I began working as a drywaller to provide for my wife and daughters. I felt weighed down by years spent living in conflict. It was difficult to shake my brain’s fight-or-flight reaction to every situation, which left me perpetually stressed, getting into fights more often than I want to admit and, I believe, contributing to my heart developing an electrical deficiency, which led to a quadruple ablation at age forty-two.
As I was recovering from that surgery, I heard a talk about the Ziva Technique. As I listened to Emily explain how meditation releases stress from the past, mindfulness helps you with stress in the present, and manifesting helps with your dreams for the future, I realized that this was exactly what I had been searching for without even knowing it. As a husband and a father, I needed to be the man that my daughters could see as their constant. I already had pleasure with my art and purpose with my family. But I had no peace. When faced with high-demand situations, my default was to fight. This was not the example I wanted to set. Ziva has helped me find my way to be the man I need to be for my wife and my girls. To peace. To my best life. And to the future. I am a better and more fulfilled husband, father, and artist today for two reasons. First, I work hard at being the husband, father, and artist I want to be; and secondly, I meditate twice daily, which is what I believe gives me the ability to do that work.
Northern Ireland has now found its peace (for the most part), and thanks to Ziva, a son of Northern Ireland has finally found himself on a path to peace.
Eyes-Closed Exercise
Love Bomb
Take a moment to get settled with your back supported, head free, eyes closed (after you read this, of course). Now start with the 2x Breath (see here for a refresher), doubling the length of the exhale from the inhale, so inhaling for the count of 2 and exhaling for the count of 4. (As you start to build on this practice, you could actually inhale for 3 and exhale for 6.) Do this for 4 breath cycles.
Start the Love Bomb by imagining that someone you love very much is sitting about three feet in front of you. Don’t worry too much about choosing the right person; usually the first person who comes to mind is the most powerful. If you can’t think of anyone who inspires an intense feeling of love in you right now, you could even use your dog or cat—anything or anyone that allows you to enjoy the sensation of love.
Take a moment to imagine their face. What do their eyes look like? What does their hair look like? What are they wearing? And how does the simple fact that you’re connecting change them? Are they present with you? Do they want to be seen? Are they shy? Are they hiding?
As you notice this person across from you, this person whom you love so, so much and who has brought joy to your life, allow the sensation of love to start to permeate and radiate through your entire body on the next inhale. Allow this person to wake up a feeling of love inside of you. Enjoy this wave of love and oxytocin washing through your body and, as you inhale, supercharging this feeling of love inside of you. Now, as you exhale, imagine blasting this person with as much love as you can possibly muster so that it fills every cell of their body.
Take a moment to check back in with their eyes. Did your sending them love change their eyes? Do they seem softer? Do they seem kinder? Do they feel more connected to you?
On your inhale, allow yourself to receive the love flowing back from this person, supercharging every single cell in your body with this feeling of love and gratitude. As you exhale, imagine sending that out to the entire room. Wherever you are right now, blast the whole room with love. Some people will picture this as a golden light radiating out from their body, or a white light, or even an actual wave of love.
With each inhale, you’re fanning the flame of this love sensation in the core of your body, and it gets bigger and stronger and brighter, so that it cannot be contained by the room you’re in anymore and starts to spill out to the entire building—your whole house and every person in it, covered with love every time you exhale.
Now on each inhale, imagine strengthening the frequency of love in your core and on the exhale, send love to your entire city. Every person, place, and thing—all your friends, all your family, even all your enemies. I want you to blast them with love. Love is one of these beautiful resources that the more we give of it, the more we receive.
On your next breath, breathing that sensation into your body and then letting it spill out, let it radiate out to your entire country. All the different political parties, all the different religions, all the different races, sending them all as much love as you possibly can—everyone in your whole country.
If you seem to be losing that sensation of love internally, come back to that one person whom you love very much, and imagine seeing their face as they sit a few feet from you, and let that rekindle the sensation of love internally.
Now imagine wrapping the entire planet with this beautiful feeling of love. This might sound a little cheesy or hippie-dippie, but really, truly, the only antidote to fear is love. You cannot fight fear with fear; we can only do that with love. So as we inhale, we supercharge every cell in our body with love, and then we blast that out to the entire planet Earth, letting it create a space of unity and connection. Imagine that, for just a moment, someone you know or someone you love, or even a stranger, can actually feel this love that you’re sending, that you’re allowing to navigate the globe. Maybe someone’s feeling a little down or all alone; maybe now they start to smile or somehow feel less alone.
On your next breath, breathing in and feeling the sensation of love in every single cell in your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes, send that love to the entire universe as you exhale. Beyond the solar system, beyond the galaxies, beyond the clusters of galaxies, and out into the entirety of all that is—allowing your imagination to expand as far as it can conceive, reminding yourself that you are a part of the universe, and the universe is a part of you.
According to the Vedas, there’s only one thing, and we’re all it. Think about that for a moment. There’s only one thing, and we’re all it. This means that the exact same matter and energy that makes up every star, in every galaxy in the entire universe, is the exact same matter and energy that makes up every cell in your body. So take a moment to surrender into that sense of expansiveness and connectedness, and know that as you blast the entire universe with love, it’s simultaneously sending it back to you.
Now, from this space of expansiveness, surrender, and connectedness, start to bring your awareness back into your whole body. Allow yourself to undulate between an awareness of the whole body and the whole universe, playing with the simultaneity of individuality and totality, of left brain and right brain, of body and universe, imagining for a moment that you are one wave on a giant ocean of consciousness. The wave is a part of the ocean, and the ocean is a part of the wave.
Set your intention to take this feeling with you throughout the rest of the day. If you start to get frustrated or angry with someone, come back to this and remind yourself, I already sent you love today, so I can tap back into this even when things start to get frustrating or overwhelming. Taking a delicious, deep inhale, wake up your body, move your hands, move your feet, and, in your own time, start to slowly, gently open your eyes.
It’s kind of fun, right? Blasting the whole planet with love. I find that it really helps in situations of conflict. If I start to get angry with a taxi driver, or someone behind the counter, I remember, You know what? I already sent this person love today. They actually are a part of me, and I am a part of them. It’s a nice way to come back to a sense of connection. If you would like to sit back, relax, and enjoy me leading you through the Love Bomb, you can listen here: www.zivameditation.com/bookbonus. You could also make a recording of you reading this exercise and listen to your own voice guiding you through.